Business Briefs: Hewlett-Packard's Whitman warns earnings will fall in 2013

Hewlett-Packard Co. is expecting earnings to fall by more than 10 percent next year as CEO Meg Whitman struggles to fix a wide range of problems in a weakening economy.

Whitman delivered the disappointing forecast Wednesday at a meeting that the ailing Silicon Valley pioneer held for analysts and investors.

She said she inherited a bloated company that hasn't been innovating quickly enough in any of its divisions, which span from personal computers and printers to software and data storage. The headaches are so severe that Whitman believes HP's revenue growth might not accelerate again until 2015.

Following the remarks, HP's stock price shed $1.19, or 7 percent, to $15.94 in afternoon trading. The sell-off shoved HP's shares to their lowest level in nearly a decade. The stock has fallen by about 30 percent since the former CEO of eBay Inc. took over HP last September.

WASHINGTON

IBM wins protest of contract award to HP

IBM Corp. has won a protest seeking to overturn the award of a $543 million federal contract for wireless tracking to Hewlett-Packard Co.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office agreed with IBM's argument that the Department of Veterans Affairs didn't properly evaluate proposals from vendors seeking the contract, Ralph White, the GAO's managing associate general counsel for procurement law, said in an emailed statement Wednesday.

"GAO sustained, or upheld, IBM's protest, finding that the VA had made several prejudicial errors in its evaluation," White said.

The decision was a coup for Armonk, N.Y.-based IBM, which failed to secure a spot last year on a $12 billion umbrella contract with the VA.

WASHINGTON

Antidepressant ineffective, FDA says

Teva Pharmaceuticals has stopped shipping its generic version of a popular antidepressant after a federal analysis showed the pill does not work properly.

The Food and Drug Administration said Wednesday it asked Teva to withdraw Budeprion XL 300 after new testing showed the drug releases its key ingredient faster than the original drug Wellbutrin XL 300, made by GlaxoSmithKline.

A spokeswoman for Teva said the company stopped shipping the drug last Thursday.

DALLAS

American Airlines loses union election ruling

A federal appeals court has overturned a judge's ruling that had blocked a union election among nearly 10,000 employees at American Airlines.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans ruled Wednesday that the lower court should have left alone a federal panel's decision to order an election by American's passenger-service agents.

The ruling is a victory for the Communications Workers of America, which wants to represent the nonunion workers, and the National Mediation Board, which ordered the election.

American sued the mediation board. It argued that the union didn't gather enough signed cards from employees to qualify for an election under new rules approved by Congress.